links for 2009-05-24

What will robots really be like when they finally achieve a human level of intelligence and autonomy? No one knows for sure, but we’ve put together a list of books that will challenge and disturb your preconceptions about what robots might become.Special note! For the purposes of this list, I’ve considered a “robot” to be any artificial, technological being – including AIs and cyborgs – with human-level intelligence.

Developing students’ literacy in our new online environment is as crucial as developing their abilities to read and write. Communication is moving toward social media. We can either help students thrive in this environment or leave them flailing.

Many students bring their computers to class. Why not work with this trend instead of fighting or ignoring it?

Social media is just that: social. Students who use Twitter for class are “learning collaborative skills that are particularly important today.”

There is only so much class time. Rheingold makes mini-lectures on video that students comment on between classes, allowing more time to engage the issues through in-class discussion.

The distinction between traditional and innovative marketing will become significantly more pronounced as the socially driven online communities continue to gain momentum, according to a Forrester Research report released today. “The Future of the Social Web,” by Jeremiah Owyang, a Forrester senior analyst, examines the monumental changes that have shaped — and will continue to impact — how consumers engage with each other. That engagement, Owyang writes, will affect the way each company reaches its customers — and more important, their influencers.”The community will take charge,” Owyang tells CRM magazine in a one-on-one interview, “and that’s going to happen whether or not marketers or brands participate.” Social networking, he adds, will only continue to facilitate the power shift toward the consumer.

The Library of Congress has created a remarkable set, FSA/OWI Favorites, which includes the “Migrant Mother,” by Dorothea Lange, the original film negative of which is housed at the Library of Congress. The Library preserves Lange’s original, and makes the digitized photo freely available. “Migrant Mother” is part of a landmark photo documentary project based in the U.S. Resettlement Administration, the Farm Security Administration (FSA), and later the Office of War Information (OWI). The most active years were 1935-1943, and the collection was transferred to the Library of Congress in 1944.

At Interactive Snack: Notes from Minnesota marketing events “Enlightening event with the presentation that could be considered a treasure of facts and numbers (Wow! 65 slides!) I wish Greg Swan and Christopher Lower had the rest of the day to continue.”

“… to get rid of uncertainty is not only impossible — to do so would be to abolish the vitality of life. The first thing to note about uncertainty — or insecurity, the uncomfortable feeling that it produces — is that it is intrinsic to a dynamic existence. Just as you can’t know heat without cold, you cannot experience security without insecurity — for the simple reason that you wouldn’t know what it felt like (just as someone blind from birth doesn’t know what darkness is).”